Two Eyes Cenote adamantium

She watches him take to the path thrown heavy by the setting sun and a small sighing relief gasps from her throat, she trembles. He goes away, and if he wears a fetter it is one she had played no part in cinching-

Why then does it feel so much as a fault and a failure of her purpose here? Their kind suffered. They tortured. They inflicted, and endured. History told them hope on this side of the tomb was foolish. Yet, without it-

Eset’s nerves strain, her legs pick up the chase, dust filling in the clutch of lungs.

“Talisman!” A sweeping voice falls over the desert in baying sheets as she brings herself breathlessly to his tawny side once more. “If this is your calling I will not stop you. I will not- control you. Please understand, I only want to- need to- know I did all I could to prepare you.”

This life was not one she would have chosen for herself. But she was bred for it, it was in her blood and history in a way similar to this boy’s. So long as Toula held the gilded throne, it was here Eset would remain. If they ran, nothing would change. The longed-for tide of reform would only fail.

“I am sorry to have not listened,” a gentleness in the shade of her sunlit eyes seeks his forgiveness. “You are right, it was wrong of me. Muat-riya opens its doors to you. If service, the role of fellahin, is what you seek then Inji and I will train you. This decision, it is yours alone to make.”